


In Hand

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Alcohol, Crying, F/M, Goddesses, Nervousness, Nostalgia, Reminiscing, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-05 19:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14625729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Alanna lets her hands fall so she can frown at the sweep of white surrounding her, laid out over the stool on which she’s perched to keep her from rumpling her satin skirts. 'Why did I ever agree to this?'" Alanna has never faced anything as intimidating as getting married, but she has more support than she expected.





	In Hand

“This was a dreadful idea,” Alanna groans from under the cover of the hands she presently has pressed to her face. “Remind me again why I thought this to be a clever plan?”

“Because you live for adventure,” Thayet tells her. The other woman’s voice is resonant enough to carry the impact of her beauty even when it’s strained around repressed laughter as it is now. “At least that’s what’s you’ve been saying for the last month.”

“Though somewhat less the last few days.” That’s Buri, making even less effort than Thayet to hold back her amusement. “I can’t believe _this_ is what has you nervous.”

“I hate parties,” Alanna reminds her friends. “Ceremonies are always worse than a battlefield. Give me a sword and I’ll take on anyone or anything you like, but this…” She lets her hands fall so she can frown at the sweep of white surrounding her, laid out over the stool on which she’s perched to keep her from rumpling her satin skirts. “Why did I ever agree to this?”

Buri hums a considering sound in the back of her throat. “Perhaps you really _are_ a masochist?”

“Because you love him.” Thayet’s voice is gentle, now, without any of the laughter that caught to it before, and the weight of it is enough to startle Alanna out of her nerve-wracked misery and bring her head up to look at the other woman. Thayet is smiling at her, her dark-lashed eyes soft as she looks at her friend; she reaches out to catch at a pinned-back curl of Alanna’s hair to draw it forward against the other woman’s face. “And you never do anything by halves.”

Alanna huffs a breath, knowing Thayet is right but too embarrassed by the truth of it to say so aloud. “Am I ready yet?”

Thayet takes a step back to consider. Buri even gets to her feet from where she’s been reclining against the wall to come forward and stand at the other woman’s side. Alanna’s face heats with color under the double force of those stares, so different in appearance but identical in intensity, but she submits, telling herself that she’ll have to face far more than the attention of her friends in a few minutes.

Finally Thayet nods. “You’re perfect,” she says, with the certainty of a woman who sees perfection in the mirror every day. “Beautiful and bridely and still very much yourself.”

“George is going to cry when he sees you,” Buri says with comfortable conviction. “I can’t wait.”

“Only if I ever make it out the door,” Alanna says. “Am I permitted to leave yet, or am I meant to stay in seclusion longer?”

“I’m afraid I must insist on the latter.” The voice is low and rich, as beautiful in its masculine resonance as Thayet’s is the epitome of femininity; it seizes the attention of all three women at once to force them to turn towards the door. Jon is leaning in the frame, his arms crossed and his eyes dancing as he considers the disarray of flowers and pins and ribbon filling the room before him. “Unless you mean to rebel against the order of your king?”

Alanna frowns at him. “What are you doing here?” she snaps. “I thought no men were to be allowed until Myles comes to meet me.”

Jon lifts his shoulder in an offhand shrug. “It _is_ my country. I wanted to sneak a peek before the ceremony itself.”

Alanna rolls her eyes at the casual arrogance in his tone. “Oh of course,” she says in the most fawning tone she can force herself into. “I should never have questioned you, Your Highness.” She ducks her head forward so she can lean into at least the outline of the curtsey she can’t offer from her present perch. “I do hope I meet with His Majesty’s sovereign approval?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Jon sighs over the sound of Buri snorting an indelicate laugh. “Get up.” Alanna lifts her gaze without straightening her shoulders and Jon unfolds from the wall to stride forward and grip her arm to urge her to upright. “Humility doesn’t suit you.”

“No more than arrogance does you,” Alanna tells him with a toss of her head. “If you want to come visit as a friend all you have to do is say so.”

“Fine,” Jon smiles at her. “I’m here to visit as a friend. Happy now?” He rocks back on his heels to look Alanna up and down. “You really do look lovely.”

Buri clears her throat from the back of the room. “I’m going to see if I can’t get a cup of wine before the ceremony,” she announces to no one in particular. “The speeches will be a little easier to handle that way.”

“I’ll come with you,” Thayet says quickly. “Alanna’s as ready as we can make her in any case.”

Alanna looks away from Jon standing in front of her to see the other two women making for the doorway with speed that only Thayet could make elegant. “Wait,” she says, and reaches out with her free hand in a futile attempt to stop their retreat. “You don’t have to go.”

“You really don’t,” Jon agrees. Buri ducks out of the door to make her escape, pretending to not have heard the king’s pronouncement, but Thayet pauses with a hand on the frame to look back at Alanna and Jon before her. Her eyes are gentle as she looks from one to the other; Alanna can see the smile in her expression even before it curves over to a smile at her lips.

“I know,” she says. She leaves the doorway to step forward instead, in towards where Jon is standing before Alanna; when she lifts her hand to touch against the other’s cheek it’s with so much tenderness in the motion that Alanna ducks her head and feels her face heat with embarrassment. “You need this.” Alanna jumps at the touch against her bare shoulder; when she looks up Thayet is beaming at her too with no less affection than the smile she gave Jon, albeit of a somewhat different sort. “You both do.” She draws back and lets her hand fall to her side, still smiling as she turns back towards the door. “I’ll be waiting in the hall.” And she’s gone with as much grace as her words carried.

Alanna and Jon stare after her for a moment. Finally Alanna takes a deep breath and heaves a sigh that seems to strip the tension from her shoulders and leaves her feeling heavy and boneless. “You don’t deserve her, you know.”

Jon’s laugh is bright. “I do know,” he says; and then he’s looking back to Alanna, and Alanna has no choice but to turn up and meet the sapphire blue of her king’s gaze.

“Alanna.” Jon’s hold at Alanna’s elbow eases; his fingers draw down her arm to press against her wrist before curling into a gentle hold around her hand. “You really are lovely today.”

Alanna takes a breath through her nose and speaks with the gruffest tone she can muster. “Relish the moment,” she tells him. “Dresses are well and good but I’m never wearing this much satin again as long as I live.”

Jon laughs. “It does seem a little out-of-character,” he allows; but his eyes are still dark, and the moment of levity gives way to sincerity once more. Alanna’s heart is beating fast; she meets Jon’s gaze with as much stoic focus as she can. Jon’s attention lingers at her eyes for a moment before drawing up to her hair and wandering over the red locks pinned up into what Thayet assured Alanna is the latest fashion. When he lifts his hand it’s to touch against the long curling strand that Thayet pulled free to fall just in front of Alanna’s face.

“No regrets?” he murmurs, his tone soft enough to make the question an intimacy just between them. “You could have been a queen.”

Alanna blinks hard and shakes her head. “I could have,” she says. “And you would have hated it as much as I would. Maybe not right away, but eventually, after years.” She shakes her head. The movement tugs her hair free of Jon’s hold. “Our romance was never meant to last.”

Jon goes on watching the curl of Alanna’s hair for a moment; then he heaves a sigh and his hand drops to her shoulder. “I know,” he says. There’s weight enough on the words to ache at the back of Alanna’s throat and burn behind her eyes; she has to blink hard to fight back the surge of startling emotion that hits her, the grief for something well-ended but ended all the same. Jon’s attention comes back to her eyes: his smile is gentle even with the shadows of lost dreams in his gaze. “It’s better this way.”

Alanna ducks her head into the most certain nod she can muster. “It is,” she says stoutly. “Thayet is better for you than I ever could have been. I get to keep my freedom to go on adventures whenever I like. And I…”

“You get George,” Jon says, his voice as gentle as his eyes. “He loves you very much.”

Alanna shuts her eyes. “I know,” she says, her throat tight on more emotion than she knows how to bear; and then she coughs a laugh, as if the idea is startling to her. “I love him too.”

She can hear the smile on Jon’s voice when he speaks. “I know you do,” he says. “He’s a lucky man.” His grip on her hand tightens to offer the comfort of pressure before he lets her go and touches his fingers to her chin instead. “Don’t cry, Thayet will have my head.”

“I knew she’d end up ruling you as well as the country the moment I laid eyes on her,” Alanna tells him, but she lifts her head obediently all the same while she blinks hard to fight back the damp still clinging to her lashes. Jon smiles at her and lifts both hands to press against her face and hold her still while he leans in to kiss against her forehead. Alanna shuts her eyes and shudders an exhale, feeling as if she’s letting some long-held tension go, and then Jon lifts his hands away and steps back from her.

“I’m going out to the hall,” Jon says. “Unless there’s anything else you need from me?”

Alanna shakes her head. “No,” she says, and she straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin. “I’m ready.”

“You look like you’re about to fight a duel,” Jon grins. “I’ll send Myles in to support you.”

Alanna nods. Jon turns away towards the door; he’s nearly there when she speaks again. “Jon?” He pauses at once to look back at her. She struggles for a moment before managing to form a smile for him. “Thank you for being my friend.”

Jon’s smile flashes like a sunbeam in the room. “I always have been, Alan.” He turns to duck out the door and Alanna is left to extricate herself from her perch on the stool under her. It’s quite an undertaking, one she handles with more efficacy than grace and at some cost to the smooth of her skirts; she’s shaking them out into their former elegance when the door comes open again and she looks up to see Myles elegant in dark grey.

“My dear,” he beams, and comes forward to take her hands. “You are a vision.”

Alanna takes a breath and shudders over the exhale. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

Myles’s smile crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Breathe slowly,” he advises. “I could get some water for you, if that would help.”

Alanna shakes her head. “I don’t want to put anything on top of the butterflies.” She draws her hand out of Myles’s hold so she can press it to the embroidered white of her gown as if the pressure is likely to stem her nerves. “Is it normal to be this nervous?”

“On your wedding day?” Myles asks. “I’m afraid so.” He turns to face the door so he can offer her his arm instead of his hand. “Allow me to escort you through the worst of the perils.”

Alanna accepts her father’s arm. “Is everyone there?”

“Ready and waiting,” is Myles’s answer. “There’s nothing for it but to face it head on.”

Alanna shakes her head. “I don’t know how to do anything else,” she admits, and she straightens her back and lets the tension in her shoulders go. “Lead on.”

They travel the distance in silence but for the crinkle of Alanna’s skirts as she moves and the soft of their footsteps falling against the floor. Alanna is glad for the opportunity to sink into her own thoughts: she feels she could do with another vigil, if it were acceptable for a bride to spend the night before her wedding wide awake. But someone -- she blames Rispah -- dosed her wine the night before to make sure she would sleep through the night undisturbed, and so all she has now are the few minutes it takes her and Myles to travel along the corridor and to the wide doors that lead into the hall itself. Her heart is racing as fast as it was the night of the Ordeal, her breathing coming with as much speed as if she’s facing the bared edge of an enemy’s blade, and then Myles pulls the door open, and leads her forward and into the room, and Alanna’s sense of reality melts away from under her.

The walk to the front of the hall seems endless and it seems to vanish as rapidly as she blinks. There are people around her, a crowd of guests standing with their hands folded and smiling bright at her: her gaze picks out Thayet, Gary, Raoul looming over Buri hiding in his shadow. Eleni Cooper is near the front, her eyes wet but her smile brilliant: Alanna’s gaze picks out Coram with the help of Rispah’s bright hair to guide her eye. Her friends are all around her, familiar faces and beaming smiles, but Alanna can barely see them, can hardly think to put a name to their faces. She feels lightheaded, like she’s coming detached from the earth, like Myles’s steady grip on her arm is the only thing holding her in place. Some part of her wonders distantly what she looks like, if her absence from the space of her own body has left her looking calm or petrified, but there is nothing she can do to change it regardless. It’s all she can do to keep walking forward with the steady, slow pace Myles urges her to; and then she’s coming to the end of the aisle, and she’s lifting her head, and she looks up into a pair of familiar hazel eyes.

George is smiling. He’s trying to fight it back, she thinks, to keep it to a more sedate level, but it’s just pulling his mouth the more crooked and turning the sparkle in his hazel eyes to gold. He’s not tear-free -- even as Alanna looks at him he lifts a hand to wipe at the wet spilling across his cheek -- but he’s beaming at her, offering up that smile that has been at her side since her first day in the city, and Alanna feels herself again all at once. She breaks into a smile in spite of herself, grinning wide with adrenaline as she looks at George, and he reaches out with both hands to usher her up.

“Here you go,” Myles murmurs alongside her. Alanna turns to look at him, feeling brilliantly clear, as if she can see everything at once in this moment, and Myles leans in to kiss against her cheek with delicate care. He’s crying too, there’s wet against his cheeks and damp at his beard, but so is Alanna, she realizes, as her breath hiccups in her throat. Myles presses his hand over her arm for a moment more of contact, and then he draws his arm free of hers, and Alanna looks up to George.

“Come here, my darlin’ girl,” George tells her, and that’s certainly not part of the ceremony as planned but it makes Alanna laugh, and that’s enough even with her face going splotchy red with emotion. She takes both his hands, fitting her palms in close against his quick fingers, and when he tugs to urge her up she steps in to stand close before him while the priest clears his throat to begin the ceremony properly.

The words wash over Alanna like a wave. There’s a rhythm to them, a pattern she drilled into herself over the last weeks as thoroughly as she has ever adopted a training regimen: it lets her give voice to her responses at the right time, even if her tone is husky with emotion rather than the polished elegance she had imagined. George beams at her all the same, his eyes glowing with happiness as if she’s the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, and she finds she can’t look away from his face any more than he can from hers. The vows are spoken, the rings are exchanged: and finally the priest raises his arms over the both of them standing hand-in-hand before him.

“By these vows, and in the sight of the gods, I declare George Cooper of Pirate’s Swoop and Alanna of Trebond and Olau to be wed.” There’s a collective breath from the audience before them and the priest lowers his arms. “May the gods carry you safe in their hands.”

Alanna doesn’t know who it is that starts the cheer. It might be Jon, might be Eleni: in any case it is too rapidly picked up to give her time to wonder. The room fills with a roar of enthusiasm, warm with approval and shared delight, and in front of her George breaks into an outright laugh before he lifts his hand to cradle the side of her face and steady her for the press of his lips. Alanna’s face heats with self-consciousness at the weight of all the eyes on them, just for a moment; then George’s hand slips to the back of her neck, and she’s reaching up to clutch at his shoulder, and her attention to anything else dissolves.

There’s a breath of a laugh from over Alanna’s shoulder, a husky purr of a woman’s tone like the weight of bells, like the baying of hounds. _Well done, my daughter_ , the Goddess murmurs. _Very well done_. The voice fades, the presence eases; and Alanna smiles against George’s mouth, and lets her husband kiss her.


End file.
